One rubber chicken, 117 mattresses, 4,159 candles, and 689,274 utensils. What do all of these things have in common?

They’re all marine debris collected last September at the Ocean Conservancy’s 2012 International Coastal Cleanup®, sponsored in part by the NOAA Marine Debris Program.

The numbers are in: more than 550,000 volunteers came together to collect 10 million pounds of marine debris.  In the United States, volunteers found enough bottles that, when stacked end to end, equal the height of 1,000 Empire State Buildings. That’s a lot of trash on our beaches and in our waterways!

This litter is threatening our marine environment, economy, and health, and the problem will only get worse unless we change the way we consume and dispose of products. There are solutions, and we can prevent litter from ending up in the ocean.

So here’s a challenge: the next time you use a throw-away item: a bag, bottle, or utensil, answer the question, “Where it’s going?” How will you keep your items from becoming litter in our oceans, rivers, and streams?

Head to Ocean Conservancy’s data release page for some neat infographics on last year’s trash haul. Here are the top 10 types volunteers found this year:

Overlooking the Great Lakes region from Metzger Pier along Lake Erie

The Great Lakes, while old, are not quite as ancient as the world’s oceans. Approximately 10,000 years ago, retreating glaciers carved out basins and filled them in with melt water. As such, the Great Lakes contain 21 percent of the world’s surface fresh water and are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth..  That is enough water to cover the 48 contiguous United States to a uniform depth of 9.5 feet!  There are five distinct Great Lake Basins: Lake Superior,  Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, but they form a single, interconnected body of fresh water that is connected all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

The first trip to the Great Lakes is surprising for people, who are often impressed and awed by their size.  The total surface area of the lakes is approximately 94,250 square miles, which is nearly the same size as the United Kingdom and larger than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined. These physical features make the region unique in many respects, and even though the lakes are not near the ocean, it does not exclude them from the impacts of marine debris.

While we may not have whales and seals that become entangled in fishing gear, our wildlife is not immune.  Each year, birds, such as seagulls and great blue herons, as well as fish and other local wildlife are found entangled in debris during beach cleanups.  The Great Lakes sustain an approximate $4 billion recreational fishing industry.  It is not uncommon to see the shores and lakes dotted with fishermen and boats enjoying the catch of walleye, perch, and other lake species.  It is also not uncommon than to see pieces of monofilament fishing line in the environment, causing an entanglement hazard for wildlife.  Many states in the region have a monofilament recycling program in place or are working to establish one.  This program distributes recycling bins (made of PVC pipes) in popular fishing spots and gives fisherman the opportunity to properly dispose of their discarded or lost line.  We encourage you to look for one in your area!

History also plays an important role in debris issues in the Great Lakes.  As settlers expanded west, the region became home to a booming lumbering industry in the late 1800s-early 1900s.  Lumber mills shipped materials from the region to areas around the United States and internationally, but they also produced millions of tons of waste in the form of sawdust, woodchips, and slabwood. That waste was discarded into the Great Lakes basin.

Two hundred years later, the Great Lakes are still polluted with this unique type of marine debris.  While the exact impacts of the sawdust and woodchips are unknown, it is believed that this historic material smothers the bottom-environment, limiting environmental productivity and habitat while contributing to the degradation of fish and wildlife populations. Efforts to restore areas like Manistique River in Michigan have already begun.

While we can’t prevent the historic sawdust issue, we can do something about the other debris in the Great Lakes. Remember the next time you are walking a beach or enjoying a day out on the water, to please secure your trash, properly dispose and recycle it, and pick up any other debris you might see laying around.  We want to protect our unique freshwater resource!

When people think of Alaska, most imagine a pristine wilderness with jagged snow-capped mountains, blue-ice glaciers, salmon, bears of various kinds, and of course, a lot of space.  While all of these things are to be found in what is rightly called the Last Frontier, it is also a place where marine debris is a very impactful and challenging problem. So what makes Alaska unique from other areas of the United States dealing with marine debris?

Alaska has a rugged and vast shoreline – more than the rest of the United States combined at over 44,000 miles, enough to circle the Earth almost twice at the equator – and incredible marine resources.  Open ocean currents and winter storms bring significant amounts of debris to Alaska’s shores every year.

Some areas with the highest debris density on record have been remote beaches.  For example, one beach at Gore Point on the Kenai Peninsula had over 25 tons of debris in less than a mile of shoreline when it was cleaned in 2007, enough to fill a 100-foot landing craft.  That compares with other cleanups in Alaska that have less than one ton per mile, which would still be very high for beaches in the Lower 48.  Plus, this area is pretty remote – the nearest landfill is at least a days’ travel away by boat, through seas that are rarely calm.

This beach gives a good picture on the challenges of removal in Alaska and shows just how much debris can come from the open ocean when winds and currents combine to concentrate a lot of stuff in a very small area.  The combination of high density and low accessibility is a common theme in beach cleanups in Alaska, which actually makes it somewhat similar to the marine debris issue in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Another a unique element of debris cleanup in Alaska is the short field season.  Beaches are frequently inaccessible from October to April in southern Alaska.  In northern latitudes, beaches can be iced in as late as May.  This means that a lot of work needs to be done in a limited time frame, and with resources that are not only limited in terms of funding, but also availability – equipment and transportation are booked quickly, and so are volunteers.  While this means there is less time to do work, it also gives the marine debris community a good amount of time to analyze what was found and prepare for future seasons (part of why there are a lot more meetings in January than in June).

One of the key resources for this analysis comes from monitoring data.  This data is regularly collected using standardized protocols at sites that NOAA and partners, such as National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and multiple NGO’s, have established at locations scattered across the state.  Using a standardized method allows us to better understand and identify changes in composition and quantity – the “what” and “how much” of debris.  As an example, scientists at NOAA Auke Bay Laboratories compared survey data they collected in 2012 to 2008 data in order to show just how much the amount of Styrofoam and light plastics had increased – it turned out to be over 1,000% in some places!

This challenging environment has fostered an innovative and active marine debris community – Alaskans typically spend a lot of time out in the environment and value the quality of life and livelihood it provides.  Many techniques of debris detection, monitoring and cleanup have been pioneered in Alaska, from small plane surveys and helicopter sling-loading of debris to debris art and outreach.

As any Alaskan will rightly tell you, Alaska is a big place.  That’s true of the debris challenges and the opportunities for positive change.  These challenges emphasize the need for smart solutions to the marine debris problems, both in Alaska and worldwide, so we can keep shorelines and the marine environment pristine, productive and beautiful.

Logs and wood debris are common along U.S. West Coast states and Alaska. This year, however, beachgoers – even in Hawaii – may see a larger amount of logs and milled lumber debris on our coastal beaches, such as small beams and other structural lumber.

It is possible that some of these items are from the March 2011 tsunami in Japan and are just now reaching our shores. Wood typically floats lower in the water and may not move as fast as items like Styrofoam, empty plastic bottles, and floats that have arrived on U.S. shorelines in increased numbers for more than a year.

Handling Wood Debris
Remove wood debris, or leave it in place?  In most cases, leave it in place. Unless the wood is treated, or contains a lot of nails and other metal, the wood – an organic material – should stay on the beach, decay, and become part of the ecosystem.

Report wood debris? In most cases, there is no need to report wood. If the item is unusual and you believe that it is Japan tsunami marine debris (see above right photo), report it as you would any other item of particular interest.

What about marine growth on wood debris?  Most species on wood debris are not invasive and may be left alone to decay with the wood. For example, many of the tsunami debris items we’ve come across had pelagic gooseneck barnacles attached to them, a common marine organism that is not invasive. Here are a few examples of non-invasive organisms, courtesy of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife:

Aquatic invasive species experts have been collecting samples and studying the species found on marine debris, including the Japan tsunami marine debris. For more information on invasive species go to http://www.anstaskforce.gov/Tsunami.html and http://wdfw.wa.gov/ais/

In Washington State, you may report any item you suspect may be harboring invasive species to 1-855-WACOAST. Please provide date and time, location (GPS coordinates if available), and general description. For more information, go to http://marinedebris.wa.gov/.

Please continue to report items that you believe are related to the Japan tsunami to disasterdebris@noaa.gov or check out all of the sightings reported to NOAA.

Photo credit: John Everett. Ocean pollution can consist of everyday products like the plastics bottles, soda cans, and sports balls shown here floating in the water.

When you hear the words marine debris, what’s the first image that comes to mind? For some, it’s lost fishing gear that entangles animals. For others, it’s post-consumer waste such as soda bottles and other single-use items littering beaches.

In reality, it’s both, but common types of marine debris can vary region by region. How they end up in the marine environment can depend on the debris type, ocean currents, and weather patterns.

Derelict fishing gear, as the name suggests, has been either discarded or abandoned in the marine environment most likely following fishing activities. But, how do thousands of cigarette butts end up on the beach? A cigarette butt, flicked onto a highway – hundreds of miles from the beach – can make its way to the ocean through the interconnected chain of storm drains, which is also true for most improperly discarded waste.

In our upcoming blog series “Marine Debris in Your Backyard,” we will take you on a journey across the nation, looking at the nine different regions the NOAA Marine Debris Program spans and the most common types of debris found in them, and how it may have ended up there.

Follow us over the next several weeks as we take our first dive with Alaska – a marine debris accumulation hot spot.

Have you ever been to a wedding or birthday party where guests released balloons filled with helium into the air? Fun, right?

What most people don’t know (or remember) is that once balloons go up, they must come down. If they don’t become snagged on something and deflate, they will keep rising and eventually burst as pressure in the atmosphere gets higher. It will fall back down to Earth a different balloon.

Photo credit: NASA

So why does this matter? Seventy percent of the planet’s surface is water, which means it’s highly likely this popped balloon will end up in the ocean, where it may be mistaken by an unlucky marine animal for a tasty jelly fish. Balloons are usually made of rubber, latex, or plastic, which can block up an animal’s stomach. The strings can become wrapped around their necks, fins, or flippers, preventing them from hunting or cutting into their flesh.

Photo credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Balloons are fun and festive, but please think twice before you let go.

Staff members of the marine debris team of the PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) are near the end of a 21-day mission to survey and remove marine debris at Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. As of April 12, after 13 days of operations, a 9-person team had removed nearly 9 metric tons (8991 kg) of derelict fishing gear, plastics, and other debris items, including a fishing boat, from the reefs and shorelines of Midway Atoll, one of several atolls and islands of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and World Heritage Site.

Read more.

UPDATE: On April 25, the Consulate General of San Francisco confirmed the boat’s origin. It is the first confirmed piece of tsunami debris in California.

On April 7, a 20-foot skiff with Japanese writing was found on the beach near Crescent City, CA. The U.S. Coast Guard and local sheriff’s office were notified and the vessel, which was covered in pelagic gooseneck barnacles, was quickly removed from the shoreline.

Staff at Humboldt State University in California translated writing on the side of the boat and found that it said “Takata High School.” The school is located in Rikuzentakata, Japan, an area devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and a teacher from the school reportedly identified the vessel as belonging to them.

NOAA is working with the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco to confirm the vessel’s origin with the new details. If the boat indeed came from the school in Rikuzentakata, this will be the first confirmed piece of tsunami debris found in California. To date, NOAA, working through Japan consulates in impacted states, has identified 26 other items found on U.S. shores as tsunami debris.

Photo credit: Lori Dengler, Humboldt State University

A dock that washed away during the March 2011 tsunami that struck Japan lands on the Oregon Coastline. Credit: Oregon Parks and Recreation

Several docks ripped away from the Port of Misawa in Japan during the March 2011 tsunami. One washed up on Oregon’s coast last summer, and a second beached along Washington’s coastline in December. Two identical debris pieces that left Japan’s coast at the same time made the journey across the Pacific, but they ended up on the U.S. West Coast six months apart and in very different locations. How can we predict where marine debris will end up?

In National Ocean Service’s “Diving Deeper” podcast, “Marine Debris: Where is it going?”, Sherry Lippiatt, NOAA Marine Debris Program’s California Regional Coordinator, talks through the challenges in predicting marine debris movement in the ever-changing ocean environment. She explains that weathering, debris type, and other factors play a role in how debris moves. Taking these and other factors into account, NOAA scientists can model debris movement, but ultimately the path of a given piece of debris can vary drastically just with changing wind or wave action.

To listen in on the full story about marine debris movement, click here to tune into the podcast.

By: Asma Mahdi, Outreach and Communications Specialist

How much debris from the March 2011 tsunami that struck Japan swept out into the ocean and dispersed over the great Pacific? What have we found so far? How can we tell if the debris we find is from the tsunami, when debris is an everyday problem?

Read up on the issue, and then share it with a friend!

Get the full picture with our Japan tsunami marine debris infographic. This infographic tells the tsunami debris story and describes the general movement we expect from debris.

Click here to download the full JTMD infographic 

Take a journey with us as we document marine debris spotted on U.S. coasts in the two years after the disaster. Check out our Google map with update-to-date information on confirmed tsunami debris items and our debris sightings video.

Click here to check out our interactive Google map that lists confirmed tsunami debris items.

Check out our Japan tsunami marine debris tri-fold to learn about what you should know when it comes to tsunami marine debris. This guide will help you organize a beach cleanup and tell you what you should and should not pick up.

Click here to download the JTMD pamphlet.

Want more specifics on handling debris? Check out our marine debris handling guidelines. If you come across unusual and large debris items, be sure you contact the proper authorities listed here.

Click here to download Japan tsunami marine debris handling guidelines.

Marine debris is an everyday problem that we can easily reduce and prevent with simple actions. Just remember your three “R’s:” Reduce, reuse and recycle. To learn more, visit us online (www.MarineDebris.noaa.gov) and always remember to “Keep the Sea Free of Debris!”